Fitness Tracker and Smart Watch

I have had a Garmin Vivosmart in the past and it was very good. The heart rate monitor was very accurate (tested against actual hospital heart rate monitors) and the sleep seemed reasonably accurate based on whether I felt I slept well or not.

I want to buy a new device but am interested in getting something a bit more like a smart watch than a fitness tracker. I want it to look smart, more like a watch and take advantage of many of the features which are available now than were available years ago.

Current Considerations

Garmin Instinct 2

£179 | Battery up to 28 days

Definitely a consideration and especially as you can disable Bluetooth
Detailed reviewed from Techradar (5/5)
Detailed review of the Garmin Instinct 2
Sleep accuracy isn’t that great. (2/5)

Garmin Venu 3

£389 | Battery up to 14 days
Sleep accuracy is mid-range and reasonable approximation. (3.5/5)
Bluetooth can be disabled.
Detailed review of the Garmin Venu 3 (4.5/5)
Detailed review of the Garmin Venu 3

Garmin Vivomove Sport

£126 | Battery life up to 5 days
Sleep accuracy is better than all the other Garmin devices.
Discounted due to battery life.

Google Pixel Watch 3
£349 | Battery 24 hours or 36 hours with battery saver.
Discounted due to the high cost and I don’t want to have to charge it every single day.

Samsung Galaxy Fit 3

£49 | Battery 3.5 days with display on or 13 days with display off
Weight: 18.5g (36.8 with strap)
Size: 1.6″ display (42.9mm high x 28.8mm wide x 9.9mm deep)
Doesn’t seem particularly great at tracking sleep.
Reasonable value though.
Detailed review of the Samsung Galaxy Fit 3.
It is possible to disable Bluetooth on the Galaxy Fit 3 by going into Options and select Airplane mode to turn Bluetooth to off.

Samsung Galaxy 5 Pro

£322 | Battery 20 to 80 hours depending on activity and settings
Discounted due to high cost and I would like to charge less frequently.

Huawei Band 9

£49 | Battery life up to 14 days
Sleep tracking is relatively poor.
It isn’t possible to disable Bluetooth on the band.

Huawei GT4

£189 | Battery life up to 14 days
Sleep accuracy is mid-range.
It isn’t possible to disable Bluetooth but the feature request was passed to R&D in December 2020.

Xiaomi Smart Band 9 / Mi Band 9

£40 | Battery life up to 21 days
Good value for what you get.
Sleep accuracy isn’t particularly accurate and is quite poor.

Garmin Vivosmart 5

£140 | Battery life 7 days
Interestingly the sleep accuracy is quite poor. (2/5)
Bluetooth can be disabled on the Vivosmart 5 which can help conserve battery life. Bluetooth can be re-enabled for synching statistics.
Detailed review of the Vivosmart 5 (4/5)
Detailed review of the Vivosmart 5

Garmin Vivoactive 5

£200 -£250 | Battery life up to 11 days
Sleep accuracy is mid-range and reasonable approximation. (3.5/5)
You can disable Bluetooth.
Detailed review of the Vivoactive 5 (4/5)
Detailed review of the Vivoactive 5

Garmin Venu SQ2

Weight: 38g
Battery life up to 11 days
You can disable Bluetooth
Only the Music version has Wi-Fi
Detailed review of the Garmin Venu SQ2

Amazfit T-Rex 3

£279 | Battery life up to 27 days
You can enable power saving mode in order to disable Bluetooth but all health monitoring features will be disabled.

Amazfit Band

Price | Battery 18 days
Weight: 28g
Size: 42mm x 24mm x 12.2mm

Oura Ring

£299-£349 | Battery 7-8 days

Not a watch, but a very accurate and highly regarded health and fitness monitoring device. Battery length is good and reasonable. It has a good application for the phone. Apparently you can put the ring in Aeroplane mode which will disable bluetooth and help conserve battery life. You have to charge it to bring it out of sleep mode.

 

 

I’ve come across some fantastic information during my research and some of the best resources are as follows:

Best Smartwatches and Health Trackers (2023) by The Quantified Scientist

Best Sports, Sleep and Health Tech by The Quantified Scientist

Best Wearables for sleep by The Quantified Scientist